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22 October 2010

Bulgogi

I mentioned a few days ago that we went to a Korean barbeque place on Saturday, and really enjoyed the food. Given that we were defrosting meat anyway, I looked up bulgogi (a kind of marinaded beef, fairly common in Korea and a specialty in this area) and found that it would be fairly easy to make. I wish we'd had sesame seeds to put in the marinade, and even though it was cooked in the marinade the beef was still quite dry and tough, unlike the meat we had on Saturday. If I had cooked less rice, we could have rolled it up in lettuce leaves, but I was silly and did giant-sized portions. It was still very nice – the onions cooked in marinade with the rice were absolutely delicious, and worth trying of their own accord.

Bulgogi

Serves 2

1 400g pack of beef

Soy sauce

Oil

2 tablespoons sugar

3 garlic cloves

Chilli powder

Seasoning

1 onion

2 servings of rice

Large handful of broccoli florets

Chopped the beef into medium-sized, very flat strips (each strip should theoretically take no more than 1 minute to cook through). Marinaded in a mixture of soy sauce, oil, sugar, chopped garlic and chilli for about twenty minutes. Put the rice on a low heat in salted water for ten minutes Chopped the broccoli into small pieces and added to the rice, cooking for a further ten minutes. Chopped 1 onion into half-moons and put in a pan on a high heat with the beef and marinade, which only needed about five minutes of cooking time. Served the rice with the beef alongside, with some cooked marinade drizzled over the rice.

We ate this with ssamchang, a Korean condiment which I doubt you'll be able to find, at least without difficulty, anywhere else in the world. It's a 'meat dipping seasoned bean paste' and absolutely delicious, if really spicy. Any spicy salsa-esque dipping would probably serve just as well, although you'd miss out on some unique flavours.